Raids: Impact of workplace and home raids on families and communities

Since September 11, raids have increasingly become a part of immigration enforcement policy. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) set up operations throughout the US in order to check the immigration status of those employed or living in our communities. Agents round up workers and conduct interviews demanding to see paperwork and documentation. Many times workers are interviewed based on their appearance and some of those arrested are legal residents or citizens. Such broad and massive stings sweep up many people including those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, between 2006 and 2007 ICE arrested over 4,000 people in workplace raids. In a raid of Swift plants, 12,000 workers were detained and only 65 were charged.